Pages

Thursday, March 2, 2017

Jokers Too Fucking Wild

The Sleaze Associates: We think so low
of you and so much of ourselves that we don’t even bother hiding or
camouflaging the true fucked-up nature of our intentions towards you.

The Delirynth

A rundown of developments from around our labyrinthine world. Readers
are advised to constantly remind themselves that we actually do live in the
world where these things are happening.

The Russia House

Though the Trump Administration keeps
doing its best to bury it, and the mainstream media seems to keep getting
distracted by a variety of shenanigan perpetrated by the President and his
staff to give it the continuous coverage it merits, the worrisome Trump-Russia
link is still the main story, with new information emerging every day. And while
having contacts with Russian officials is not by itself problematic, lying
about it is. Indeed, there are plenty of legitimate reasons for Trump staffers
to have had contacts with Russian officials during and after the elections.
That does not by itself constitute a violation of the Logan Act. But lying about
these contacts leaves us with the impression that something sinister is at
play. Whether this is indeed the case or we are simply dealing with a case of
sheer incompetence the issue is too big to ignore. America deserves better quality
leaders than those whose behavior can only be described as either traitorous or
incompetent. Yet, considering the state of partisan politics involved, we might
just have to live under this cloud for years to come. The struggle continues,
and the self-recusal
of Jeff Sessions is but a minor achievement in this regard. In fact, the
whole Sessions Affair but a minor act in a larger
more convoluted play.

Obama
Administration Rushed to Preserve Intelligence of Russian Election Hacking. “American allies, including the
British and the Dutch, had provided information describing meetings in European
cities between Russian officials — and others close to Russia’s president,
Vladimir V. Putin — and associates of President-elect Trump, according to three
former American officials who requested anonymity in discussing classified
intelligence. Separately, American intelligence agencies had intercepted
communications of Russian officials, some of them within the Kremlin,
discussing contacts with Trump associates.”

Still, incompetence by Democrats seems to
be helping Trump beat the Russia rap.

Moreover, it seems that Mr. Putin, acting
through his Syrian proxies, is trying to test Mr. Trump on Syria:

General:
Russian, Syrian planes hit US-backed fighters. “Lt. Gen. Stephen Townsend, the top US commander in the fight against
ISIS in Syria and Iraq, said ISIS fighters had withdrawn from the towns and
Syrian-Arab coalition troops had moved in. US forces serving in an advisory
role witnessed the Russian and Syrian airstrikes, Townsend said. Quick calls to
Russian forces through "deconfliction channels" stopped the bombing,
he said.”

And speaking of Syria, the Wall Street
Journal has also uncovered a Syrian-Russian link to Eric Trump.

The report issued by the United
Nations-mandated Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria goes
on to describe an attack on a UN convoy by Syrian air force as having been "meticulously
planned & ruthlessly carried out," it then, describes the forced
evacuation of civilians from east Aleppo as constituting a “war crime.” The
report also highlights violations by rebel groups and notes that Al-Qaeda’s
Syrian affiliate only had 150-200 fighters operating among the over 8,000 rebel
that inhabited the city at the time.

The report comes at a time when the Trump
Administration is threatening to pull out of
the United Nations Human Rights Council and clearly demonstrates the foolish
nature of such potential step. The U.S. is motivated here by the UN body
criticism of Israel, but there is more to its work than Israel. So, no matter
what the U.S. policy on a particular country or issue might be, now that it has
become a member of this body that is becoming increasingly more active and
relevant it should stay there for the long haul. Otherwise, it will undermine
not only the work of this body but the global struggle for human rights as a
whole.

Why
Were the 7,000 Antisemitic Incidents Under Obama Largely Ignored?“This raises serious questions
about how we discuss and learn from antisemitism. When people sit through a
sermon and don’t raise a hand in protest when a preacher says Jews should be
killed, that’s a huge problem. What about when there are clear cases of
antisemitism whose perpetrators are not charged with hate crimes? In Avignon, a
man tried to light firecrackers in front of a synagogue, but was cleared of
antisemitism charges. He just happened to do it in front of a synagogue, not any
of the dozens of churches in the town? This is one of but many examples. The
question is: Are we only offended by certain types of antisemitism and not
others?”

Good question and it does merit an answer.
As the author of this article himself demonstrates, inadvertently perhaps, is
that the election of Donald Trump as the 45th President of the United
States came in part as a result of agitation by a movement or a current that
has been active and gaining ground for years. With the election of Mr. Trump, and
considering his choice of advisers, official (Steve Bannon) and unofficial (Alex
Jones), the current now has representatives of its ethos in the White House and
certain sway over the thinking of the President. That’s quite an ominous and worrying
development. Yet, it’s this development that seems to have finally alerted
people as to the danger posed by this current, long thought to be too
politically marginal to count. This is probably why we have more coverage of
anti-Semitic incidents at this stage. It’s not the type of antisemitism that counts
here, it’s the reach of the anti-Semites.

Beyond Polarity: If Mr. Trump
doesn’t really know what he’s saying at times or appreciates its implications,
if he’s indeed speaking from the top of his head, as they say, and going
on instinct, then, far from constituting a good defense, this is actually the
scariest scenario of all. If Mr. Trump’s instincts just happen to take him down
such paths and roads every so often, then, he really shouldn’t be leading us,
and we really shouldn’t be following him.

The Conway-Spicer Conundrum:
A contemporary variant on the ancient puzzle that continues to befuddle political
scientists, sociologists and journalists, namely: how can one best deal with
chronic shameless bullshitters? The new variant is distinguished by the fact
that contemporary bullshitters seem to reflect an even greater resiliency to
objective facts and rational analysis making confrontation with them completely
unpalatable as well as an exercise in futility. Another aspect of the new
variant is the marked ability of the new bullshitters to go about their task even
without having to say a word sometimes, having succeeded in hypnotizing
many in their audience into bullshitting themselves.
An example of this telebullshitting phenomenon is the recently deployed Kellyanne
Pose, a brief action that involves doing something seemingly irreverential
and thoughtless but within the confines of a publicly hollowed space, then, thanks
to the Twitterverse, what could have been seen as a simple innocuous action becomes
a full-blown controversy, one that helps distract attention from the general
fuckupness of certain policies and facts, if only momentarily and until a new Kellyanne
Pose is struck. There is currently no consensus on how to best confront the contemporary
bullshitters, but recent experiences have amply demonstrated that rolling one’s
eyes and trying to mentally project oneself into an alternative moment in
space-time has not only failed as an approach, but seems to have actually
achieved the opposite effect, namely that of empowering the bullshitters.

High Decibel Whisperers: The only type
of advisers that seem able to reach populist leaders with large egos and small
hands. Their ability to shout their whispers and keep their thoughts ever so
close to the edge of insanity enable them to break through their targets’ ego
barriers, those invisible defenses that populist leaders erect around
themselves in order to protect themselves from prolonged exposure to the
humanity of others.

Jonesing: In political parlance, “to jones” is to behave like Alex Jones, the current U.S. president’s high decibel whisperer, that is, like a complete unhinged psychopathic moron, only to end up advising the most powerful man in the world. Example 1:Mike just jonesed his way up in the world, man. Example 2:Way to jones, bro. Example 3:The U.S. President, Donald J. Trump, is said to be planning on jonesing his way into his Russian counterpart good favor in the hope of discovering firsthand what kind of bedfellows the two would make. Indeed, and the last example shows, a hidden putinian element seems to be involved in jonesing. In fact, some commentators have speculated that Mr. Alex Jones is actually nothing more than a Russian biological experiment gone haywire producing a crazier and fatter Vladimir Putin. Indeed, in some religious circles both in Russia and the U.S., Alex Jones to Vladimir Putin is now seen as representing what Fat Buddha is to Thin Buddha in Buddhist lore: a richer, crazier and, in this case, hairier avatar.

Orange Pete: A folk
appellation given to the populist Dutch politician Geert Wilders on account of
his unabashed admiration of U.S. president, Donald Trump, and many of his
proposed policies. In other words, Orange Pete, very much like Black Pete, is
another thing about the Dutch people and culture that reminds us that, as
wonderful as they are, they are no less prone to serious fuckups than the rest
of us.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Go ahead, patronize me!

IGD: We finally hit a perfect 10. We now offically live in the Age of Total Delirirum

The IGD or the Index of Global Delirium reflects the state of delirium in the world at a particular moment in time using a 1 to 10 measure, with 10 denoting the highest level of delirium. Levels of delirium change on the basis of various current developments such as instability, wars, terrorist activities, elections, sports events, financial meltdowns, leaks of sensitive information, etc. Note:levels of violence and delirium do not always coincide. IGD levels may rise even when violence levels seem to take a downturn.

Dystopia Today: The Home Front

Dystopia Today: The Global Stage

I Am Syria

Educators will find theI Am Syria websiteto be quite useful when it comes to finding audio-visual materials explaining the Syrian Crisis in general and the plight of the Syrian Refugees in particular. The site is maintained by a small team of volunteer educators and receives tens of thousands of visits per months.I am honored to be involved in this effort.

Recent Entries into The Holy Deliricon

Recent Entries into The Holy Delirindex

Recent Observations by Delirian Mundi

Recent Scenes from Theatrum Deliria

Recent Episodes from The Cauldron

Syria: A Fire Within

As anti-Assad demonstrations erupt across Syria, Ammar Abdulhamid, an exiled pioneer of the pro-democracy movement must convince US leaders that they have allies on the ground. Or else those allies, and the entire pro-democracy movement, may forever perish.